In the mornings, when they turned out, they never looked at the sky or the direction of the wind; they instinctively turned to The Duncans, and if the Blue Peter was not at her fore peak they made arrangements for spending still another day among the Orkneys.

What in Wemyss tended to call forth a good deal of respect was that he seldom mixed with the other captains, but condescended to take only a single glass with a select few.  I noticed that he preferred the company of Bailie Duke, or of Lloyd’s agent, and other magnates of the town.

Flett received me with a friendly welcome when I went into the inn, ordering a cup of coffee for me, and bidding me sit beside him until Captain Gordon should join us.  He spoke of me to Captain Wemyss, and at that the whole company present fell to talking of the accident in the Sound.  They were in the midst of a discussion as to the cause of the disaster when Captain Gordon entered, accompanied by Bailie Duke.

Gordon was somewhat of a stranger to them all, so Captain Wemyss gave the names of the others, including Lloyd’s agent, Captain Miller of the Albatross, and Captain Abernethy of the brig Enterprise, the last of whom, I may tell you, was the officer my father had described to Gordon as knowing so little of navigation that he had, after cruising out of sight of land for some months, mistaken the Mainland of Orkney for one of the West Indian Islands.

Bailie Duke, whose happy face wore a constant smile, and whose bright eyes seemed ever to be asking questions, took his seat in the armchair, and passing his snuffbox round the company, very soon took the lead in the conversation.  He was the chief magistrate of the town, but he did not assume any undue dignity on that account.  Indeed, his long life among the simple fisher folk of Stromness, and his business connection with ships—­for the bailie was a shipping agent—­had given him a sympathy with all persons connected with the sea which quite overrode his dignity as a magistrate.  He could talk of ships as learnedly as any of the captains, and of every vessel that had been in the harbour for the last twenty years he could tell the name and history whenever he saw her again.  As for his knowledge of freights, duty, stability, and the ordinary affairs of shipping, he was the one man in Stromness whose word was taken above all others.

When Bailie Duke was comfortably settled in his easy chair, and there was a lull in the noise of conversation, he turned to Captain Gordon and asked him to tell the company how he had come by the hurt in his head, and what sort of a time he had had in the recent storm.

“Well, ye see,” said Gordon, taking a glance round his hearers’ faces, “it was a most unlucky affair from the first.  I was warned before I left Stromness that my masts were too high, and in addition to the fear of losing them I was troubled by my men declaring that the ship was bewitched.  We were overrun with mice, d’ye see.  Well, I got a cat, a wild-like animal, from old Grace Drever here.  Young Ericson brought the beast aboard, but what became of it I cannot exactly tell, for no man could find it, though we could often hear its wild squealing at night.